14 April 2007

In an anonymous comment a few days back, written in response to my Liv-Tyler-looks-pregnant post, one of my angrier readers, somewhere in between reminding me I don't have a husband and asserting I have an obsession with my waistline, launched the out-of-nowhere perennial 6th grade insult: "you're a slut."

My initial reaction was confusion. On several fronts. How can I be both man-free and a slut? Isn't it an accepted, objective truth that Liv Tyler looks sausage-encased every third time she goes out in public? And then most curious of all, why did this reader place commas after transition words when the connective sentences weren't stand-alone ideas and then not use them when they were?

The more I thought about what this reader wrote, however, the more sense her words seemed to make. Then last night, after a male friend convinced me to do something I didn't want to do with the promise of a paid-for UVA-free tanning session, I realized she was right. In some ways, I am a slut.

If you buy me any of the above items (not to mention a whole host of others, including this and these), I will quit my job, forget how to speak Chinese and be your Tina Turner private dancer, Julia Roberts polo-match escort on a full-time basis. We don't even need to get along or challenge each other intellectually. We don't need similar interests, the prospect of laughter or common values. All you need to do is buy me what I want, and I will fix for you Annie's organic penne and cheese, Pillsbury Grands and simple green salads every night of the week. I will let you massage my back, cajole you into watching E! News Live every weeknight, blame you for every pound I gain and double-promise to involve you in completely inappropriate public displays of affection like egregious crotch-grabs, outdoor-voice ribald sex talk at work functions and pressure you into ordering pre-dessert "dessert" in upscale restaurant bathrooms. Women's bathrooms.

And the more you give me, the more Tera-Patrick-in-Hogtied! I'll be, so it's really to your advantage to drop serious cash.

So, as much as I appreciate my friends coming so quickly and convincingly to my defense in the face of having the s-bomb hurled at me, I feel it's only fair I come clean and admit I am in fact 100% for sale.

The Concept

Each day, with old man candor, I'll offer my brand of style counsel to the professional DC women who believe a serious job is a valid excuse for an ill-fitted, office inappropriate, comfort first work wardrobe. And when the mood strikes me, which is often, I'll also muse about celebrity fashion and my own fashion-related comings and goings, both of which, I'm sure, are of great interest to you.